


Entangled In Time

by laufeeyson



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Paradox, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-01
Updated: 2013-08-01
Packaged: 2017-12-22 03:02:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/908125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laufeeyson/pseuds/laufeeyson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A time entanglement. The most deadly and not-deadly of possible consequences of releasing a Maltrazanian spirit into a time traveling space-ship. The Doctor, trying to fix the TARDIS is trans-matted to Earth, or so he thought. As he discovers more and more about what is going on on 'Earth' he also has to find ways of getting back to the TARDIS. Or are both problems connected in someway. And what has this coal-burning company got to do with cloning?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

I licked my thumb and stroked it across the console of the TARDIS, picking up a crumb and placing it in my mouth. She groaned and wheezed, something was wrong with her but I wasn’t planning on making a scene out of it. Especially since there was no-one to make panic minus myself, and that wasn’t much of a problem anyway. There were at least 300 other billion species out there that would panic more than I would about an ill TARDIS. Not really, there was more chance of the universe blowing up than that happening, and that was in fact true. Now, I would have been finding out what was wrong had there not been something strange going on . . . something stranger than an ill TARDIS of course, not that you could get much stranger than that. A loud crash and a vibration ran throughout her and I was knocked to my knees, when I looked up there was someone standing in the doorway, who looked oddly familiar, yet everyone seems familiar to me since I’ve probably seen them somewhere before in time and space and possibly everywhere else too. She had dark, dark brown hair that didn’t reach past her shoulders, hazel coloured eyes and the weirdest clothes; she was dressed up like . . . wait – me! She was in my clothes which meant I was either in her clothes or . . . or . . . or naked. I looked down at myself and suddenly felt in need of air. Well of course she had been wearing a corset, of course she had. I looked between the horrid blue dress and the person in front of me, switching my head between each a couple of times whilst thinking of some way to explain everything that was going on. Thoughts ran through my head, disintegrated when I introduced problems to them; I wasn’t getting very far. See. This is why I have to think out loud, because then I remember it – my brain isn’t big enough to compensate for the amount of knowledge in it. Sometimes I did wish I had a bigger head and that is not meant to be a metaphor.

“I . . . I can explain everything.” I stammered. That was a rubbish start.

“What am I wearing!?” The girl yelled quite loudly, her voice vibrated off of the walls and caused the TARDIS to screech loudly.

“I-I-I know how you feel. Really, I do. But the question is – how did you get in my TARDIS?” I replied, just as stunned as she looked.

“And what’s with the bow-tie?” She seemed to be taking things pretty well.

“Bow-ties are cool.” I told her, and was about to straighten it when I realised I wasn’t wearing it. It caused me to roll my eyes for some strange reason.

“Wait a second – your what?”

“My TARDIS.”

“A what?” She questioned continuously, this might start getting old pretty quickly.

“It’s my . . . err . . . Spaceship! Yes, it’s my spaceship.” I told her. “I wonder why that was hard to remember . . . “I mumbled to myself then snapped my fingers. “Shock.”

“How did I get here?” She asked me, pursing her lips as she stared around at the dimly lit main control room.

“You tell me.”

“How am I supposed to know? One moment I’m dancing and then I’m in the middle of some mad-man’s spaceship that looks completely ridiculous and am dressed in tweed and a stupid bow-tie!”

“Dancing. I love dancing. Hey! Don’t diss the bow-tie either . . .” I thought to myself for a couple of seconds then realised: “Temporal displacement, how can I be so thick. But no, wait, hang on, I’m in the Time Vortex – or at least I should be, so there’s no way that you could have got in unless you had some kind of advanced method. What are you? Human? Yes. Human. But how?” I hit my head a couple of times whilst pacing and it did hurt. “Of course! No that doesn’t work. Yes! No, that doesn’t work either.” I walked up to her and pulled up her sleeves, well, my sleeves if you think about it. “Some kind of defence mechanism? Teleports? What!?” I examined her arms, looking for any kind of machinery before I felt a sharp sting on my face.

I turned my head back to her, holding my cheek. “What was that for?” I’d had my fair share of slaps but she had strong arms and really, really big hands.

“You’re handling me. What do you think it was for?” She said loudly, frowning at me with crossed arms.

“. . . Sorry . . .” I told her, turning away before turning back. “What’s your name?” I asked her, looking into her eyes. I must have been frightening her, because she was pulling away, or being just a little bit to forward.

“Janet Baker . . .”

“Okay Janet, three things, one’s going to sound a little weird and possibly scary for you. So first thing – I’m the Doctor, don’t ask questions, just the Doctor and second . . . do you think we could . . .” I coughed, having difficulty getting my words out. “Um . . . switch clothes?”

She shook her head at me as if I was being ridiculous. “You said three things.” She told me.

“Well. Do you want a third thing?”

“It depends-“

“On what?”

“If it’s going to put me in danger or not.”

“Well. It’s not fun if you’re not in danger.” I said, grinning.

She looked away from me, laughing lightly in disbelief. “You might as well tell me or I’ll worry instead.”

“Okay. Thing three - My spaceship seems like it’s about to put us into the middle of some kind of rift which, if we stay in for an extended amount of time we might just blow up. . . well, implode.”

“Lovely.” She sighed.

“Wardrobe’s that way. D’you want to get something more comfortable or do you want your dress back, because if you want your dress back this might get a bit . . . weird.” I said, pointing to a hollow in the wall.

She grinned at me. “The dress suits you. You should wear it more often.” She walked off towards the wardrobe.

“No! That’s not what I meant!” I called after her, gritting my teeth.

This was going to be a long night.


	2. Chapter 2

I decided since both of us were practically naked that I’d just go up to her in a towel and ask for my clothes politely while handing over her dress, but I couldn’t have known that she hadn’t been dressed at all. All of the clothes from the wardrobe had mysteriously disappeared. The large expanse of area that looked like it might have fit a tennis court was completely empty. I briefly saw her figure, back turned, glaring at the empty wardrobe.

“Wah!” I turned my back quickly holding one hand over my eyes. “I’m not looking! See! Back is turned!”

“Don’t you know how to knock!?” She shouted loudly, throwing something at my back which just hit the floor; probably my clothes.

“Well. It’s my spaceship. I don’t normally knock in my own home.” I said, back still turned whilst leaning down to pick up my stuff.

“It’s usually polite!” She said, pushing me out of the wardrobe then slamming the door in my face.

“That wasn’t very pleasant.” I whispered to myself as I strode on down the corridor in my towel.

Another vibration ran throughout the complicated path ways of the TARDIS, I barely manage to stay up by holding onto a grating on the wall. One of the extractor vents which activated on my voice; I really had no idea that the TARDIS even had them until someone shot it. The heating had switched itself off; I could feel my feet freezing, though that might have been natural since I wasn’t wearing any socks. The thing that bothered me was that the heating was shut off before the lights, usually when the TARDIS needed power she’d do it so that we could survive the longest - that meant lighting, heating, gas exchange banks then air field. So something was wrong. I started getting dressed in the middle of the corridor, shirt first, bow-tie second, then disappeared into a side room whilst I got the rest of the clothes on. Then when I came back out I saw Janet running down the corridor, she didn’t speak to me so I just looked to see what she was running from. There wasn’t anything there, well nothing I could see anyway. So I continued down the corridor after her and back into the main control room. The lights had dimmed and there was a quiet, yet high-pitched wailing coming from the console. Two red lights were flashing on the section facing me, or should I say The Red Lights - the annoying ones that never seemed to stop flashing.

“Oh.” I groaned. “I really have to get rid of those.” I said, bringing my fist down harshly on the metal, it really hurt and did nothing to affect the lights at all. So I kicked it instead, the result was a very sore toe and an angry phone-box.

I hopped around to the other side of the console to check the screen, red numbers flashed like crazy behind the glass - a four here, two there, minus fives and sixes. It made no sense to me, not at the moment anyway. There must have been some kind of fluctuation in time and possibly someone messing with us.

“Janet, tell me what you were running from.” I said, leaning down and tapping the glass valves that were positioned above the type-writer, just to see if it would fix itself.

“I wasn’t running from anything.” She answered; she was sitting down on one of the springy chairs, looking across the console at me.

“Then why were you running?” I continued. To be honest I felt a little confused over her actions.

“I wasn’t.”

“But you were.”

“No. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t.”

I lifted my head up to see her expression; she appeared to be telling the truth. “How strange . . .”

I took me a couple of seconds to realise - whilst messing with the controls to try and stabilise her – completely ignoring the brakes even though I knew that was what was causing her to jump – that something was either controlling her mind, my mind, or that I was simply seeing things.

“Do you remember how you got into this room?” I asked her, leaning over the console to pull a lever.

“I came down the corridor into it. Why?”

“Because I think something strange is going on. Not that it wasn’t already.” I said, and then another massive crashing sound echoed around the room.

The doors of the TARDIS swung open and both me and Janet were sent flying towards them, air pressure could really get on your nerves sometimes. She managed to catch her hand on one of the railings while I – yelling loudly out of confusion – was pulled strait out of the doors and into space. Which was strange since there was meant to be a Time Vortex here which should have ripped me apart. I felt the burning sensation in my throat from air deprivation and could see Janet standing in the door way. I tried calling to her but forgot that I was in space and sound doesn’t travel in space.

“I can’t hear you!” She called, well; at least I think that was what she said. Lip reading does come in useful sometimes.

I was also wondering why I wasn’t freezing to death, at around -300 degrees Celsius things could get a little cold out here. Maybe the TARDIS was protecting me somehow. Janet disappeared deeper into the TARDIS and I hoped that she’d had an idea, a good idea, one that might be physically possible. One like chucking a rope out for example – oh, that was exactly what she was thinking. She came back baring a long rope, tied at the end like a lasso and swinging it above her head. She didn’t really have to go through that whole ordeal; she could have just let it float out to me. When she threw it I managed to catch it – barely – before it went too high. She then pulled the end towards her and me through the air shell.

Coughing, trying to catch my breath, I told her: “Shut the doors.” But I don’t think she understood a word I was telling her.

So stumbling towards the doors I pushed them shut myself, a little annoyed with the blank mindedness of my new friend. That could have been entirely my fault though for coughing through every word and saying it too quietly.

“Right.” I started, after catching my breath. “That was different.”

“What the hell just happened?!” Janet interrupted my train of thought.

“I don’t know yet, you just interrupted my thinking!”

“Explain!”

“Shut up!” I yelled at her.

“Tell me what on Earth is going on!” She yelled back.

“Well, technically we’re not on Earth, but if you want to pretend it is – sure.” I began rambling, again.

“For goodness sake!” She grabbed my jacket and forced me to look at her. “Tell me what’s going on or I’ll . . . um . . .”

“Yeah. Empty threats. Gets you like that sometimes. Never mind then.” I jumped to my feet and wandered back towards the console.

I dragged the screen towards me, the numbers didn’t seem to have stabilised any more than they had before. I enjoyed having an exciting ride but I made a guess that the brakes were probably wearing out a little, anyway, that didn’t matter. What mattered was that the warning lights hadn’t stopped flashing.

I turned to them and pointed an accusing finger towards them. “What’s the point in having you here if you never tell me what’s wrong!?” I yelled at them as if they could answer.

I was starting to get cranky; I could feel it coming on. Lack of sleep was what mainly caused that, all I needed was a bit of a sugar rush to last me a few hours. So, time for some Jammy Dodgers. I pulled out a handful from my pocket and looked at them, frowning. One was rotting, another had gone all dry and crispy, one was damp which I found greatly repulsive.

“Oh. Best before dates, I hate them. It’s not ‘best-before’ it’s ‘eat-them-now-or-die’ isn’t it? It is. Or maybe . . .” I began drifting into thoughts again.

Janet glared at me from her position on the seat. “Maybe what?” She asked.

“Maybe time is messing with the TARDIS somehow. I mean, the TARDIS is able to protect paradoxes because when you’re in it no matter what you do time will stay linear . . . That might explain why my biscuits have all moulded at different stages.” I said, slightly angrily since I now had a lack of jam.

“What is with you and those biscuits?” Janet asked me, looking at me crumpling them in my hands.

“I’m tired.” I told her, frowning and rubbing my eye with the back of my hand.

“Tired . . .” She repeated. “Why don’t you just go to bed then?”

“Because I’m busy, I’m trying to think. So shht.” I held my finger to my mouth and immediately she shut up. I really loved that. “So, you were dancing then ended up here, in a place where there should have been a Time Vortex but now isn’t. You must have been teleported here with some low-tech equipment, I mean how else would I end up wearing a corset-“ She tried to protest, probably with a joke, but I held a hand in front of her mouth. “Before though the TARDIS refused to do what I told her and now she’s throwing me out into a part of space that doesn’t make sense. A dream perhaps? No, we’ve been through that before and I’m sure there’s no pollen left – I checked. So something is messing with time . . . oh . . .”

“Oh what?” Janet mumbled beneath my hand.

“The Corvent . . .”

“The-what-now?” Janet began to sit up but I pushed her back down by her shoulder.

“Ages ago. I mean, hundreds of years ago before I acquired the TARDIS an old friend of mine told me that someone had been using TARDIS’ to store dangerous items because they knew that they would not be able to affect anything whilst the ‘thing’ was still inside. These ‘things’ were called Corvents and now . . . it’s been let out.

“At first I thought it was just a story but now I’m not so sure. Only something really, really dangerous can alter time and space and mess with the Time Vortex. Only something dangerous can mess with the TARDIS. Usually Corvents are locked up in some kind of cell, a spirit Corvent would be locked up in something like a jar. And only a spirit or soul can get into the TARDIS’ mechanisms and mess around with it. Which means that somewhere around here was a jar and that jar has been opened . . . Only a living form can open it, it’s too strong just to smash. So there must have been someone else that teleported in here. Maybe you’re just a diversion, Janet. Perhaps that is what these warning lights are trying to tell me.” I tapped the glass that contained the red glare. “First thing first is to find the jar and make sure my theory is true. Where would it be stored? Someplace that never changes when the TARDIS redecorates, that would have to be the storage-rooms.” I realised then that I probably should have seen it somewhere. “And if I’d seen it, that meant I probably would have taken it somewhere else, it would have to have been ages ago if I’ve forgotten where I’d put it. Not really, since occasionally I forgot my name – though that was also quite old. So maybe I put it in my museum, well, it’s not a museum, it’s just where I keep all my artefacts and old stuff-“

Janet interrupted me by saying:”Well if you know where it is, shouldn’t you be looking for it?”

“If I knew where it was, I wouldn’t have to look for it.” I told her, a little confused by the way she had said it.

“You’re speaking gibberish.”

“I’m not speaking gibberish at all, plus, gibberish isn’t even a language – who came up with that name anyway? All stories start somewhere, and if I find out where it started I might be able to correct him/her-”

“Doctor, shut up.”

“-Because she/he irritates me sometimes with that darned word.”

“Doctor!” Janet yelled over the racket of the TARDIS, or maybe she was yelling over me, I couldn’t tell.

“Yes?” I turned to her, she looked angry.

“Shut up and get on with it.” Janet stood up against my hand.

“Oh. Okay. Sorry.”


	3. Chapter 3

It took us almost twenty minutes to get to the ‘museum.’ The directions were simple but we still managed to get lost . . . twice. I think it was because I was speaking continually about things that weren’t important, like what I’d been up to the past four days. I’d been to Space Florida again for a holiday and something really interesting happened. This bloke – Rythen-mardair, an Olredon – came up to me and asked me where I’d been. I didn’t know him until after an argument when he suddenly realised that he was probably speaking to my ‘past’ self. We went through a complicated arrangement where I got him back to me, involving a lot of dangerous paradoxes and very awkward and complicated moments but eventually he thanked me and went his way. So much for a holiday. Janet had interrupted me before I moved on to the stalkers; I don’t think she wanted to know about the dangerous women.

After a few more lefts and a set of stairs we came to the place that we’d been meaning to get to for quarter of an hour. The lock had been forced open, from the outside it seemed. I wondered who could have done that, it wasn’t like the TARDIS was susceptible to pointy things. He or she would have to had had a massive gun of some description, which made me worry more that there was someone watching us. I pushed open the door; it was made of hardwood and looked very out of place in the metal made corridor. An orange glow blared out of the tiny crack I’d made in the door way, so I shut it again.

“Okay. Something’s definitely got out.” I told Janet, staring at the door again. “Should we go in?”

“You tell me.”

“Yeah, we probably should go in, I mean how else are we going to stop it? Plus, this is what I do every day of my life – fight monsters.” A started pushing the doors open again.

“If you say so.”

I abruptly pulled the doors shut another time. “What is with you and bland answers? Do you not have an opinion of your own?”  
“I do. I just don’t feel like talking.” Janet answered, seemingly oblivious to the fact that I was trying to get her to talk more.

“Why not?”

“Well, I’m currently still trying to figure out how I got here.”

“But I’ve told you already.” I told her, folding my arms and leaning back against the door.

“No you haven’t.”

I was going to protest when the door fell open under my wait, I seemed to have forgotten that it opened in wards and didn’t have a handle on this side. I fell backwards into the room, catching myself with my hands before I hit my head. The orange glow hit my eyes and blinded me for a couple of seconds before they adjusted to the light. I turned over so that I was now in more of a press-up position and leaned back. I was on my knees now, sitting back on my feet whilst I stared at the orange coloured light in front of me. It was strange, it was there, but it didn’t feel like it existed. I couldn’t trust my own eyes, so when I stood up I scanned it with my sonic. Well, I tried to anyway. The orange glow invaded the green light that my screwdriver let off and for some reason it didn’t want to work right. I felt the longer that I held the button down, the more the creature in front of me would know about me. So I put it back in my pocket and looked at it.

“What are you . . . ?” I asked quietly.

I wasn’t expecting it to answer, so when it did I received quite a shock.

“I. Am. You.” It said only three words, and each seemed to come as a separate sentence.

“No you’re not. You’re a blob of orange light.” I protested, looking around to see if I could find the container it had escaped from.

“I. Am. The. Doctor.” It said.

“What?” I asked, looking up at it again.

It repeated itself: “I. Am. The. Doctor.”

“No you’re not.” I told it. This was starting to get pretty interesting, I was enjoying this conversation.

“I. Am. You.”

“But you aren’t. You’re not me. You don’t even look like me, never mind the fact that you’re a completely different species.”

“I. Am. You.” It said, again.

Then it flickered, like a television with a bad connection. For a moment it completely disappeared, then it returned looking completely different. It was still glowing orange but instead of just a floating light it now had a figure. A body. One of course which you’d probably be able to put your hand through, but it looked like me. I wondered why it would be trying to steal my identity.

“I. Hear. You.” It spoke again, this time the mouth of its disguise moved with it, but it still spoke as if it was reading from a dictionary.

“Hear me? I didn’t say anything.” I told it, drawing slowly out of the room. Janet hadn’t said anything since I’d fallen through the doorway.

“You. Wonder. Why.”

“Ah! You hear my thoughts, I see. That’ll get annoying in the long run I suppose.” I realised out loud whilst pushing Janet back from the door so that I could let myself out.

“You. Back. Away. Why?” For once it asked me a question.

“Because I know what you are and I know what you want.” I said, then slammed the door in its face.

“Huh . . . okay, that’s a new one.” I said, staring at the door.

“What . . .” Janet breathed. “What was that?”

“That was a Maltrazanian Spirit, a computerised life-form if you like. They are usually referred to as Techno-Forms. People think they were invented by the Humans in Japan in 2,314 for spying purposes in the Third World War. They didn’t know what they were creating . . .” I explained to her, then gritted my teeth after realising what I just said.

“There’s a third world war!? What happened to the second!?” She shouted at me in confusion.

“What year is it where you come from?” I asked, turning to her.

“Why does that matter? Seriously, you’ve just told me I’m going to have to endure a war!”

“No I didn’t, I just said there’d be a third. Just because there’s a third doesn’t mean that there has to be a second. Plus, if there was a second, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be in your life time.” I convinced her, grinning.

“Yes it does! You need to have a second before you have a third! That’s why it goes ‘one, two, three’!”

“Humans . . . so linear.” I said, sighing. “When you travel through time, nothing is in order.”

“Why did it copy you?” She asked, seemingly calming down.

“Because he knows that the TARDIS trusts only me, and if he can trick her into believing that he is me then she will let him mess with her controls.” I said, though I didn’t know if it would be right or not. “Or maybe he just wants me to feel uneasy, though the Maltrazanians never had those kinds of properties; they’d only do something if there was a reason behind it.”

“Right. And how do you know all of this?” Janet continued asking questions, I felt as if she’d never stop.

“Let’s just say I’ve been around.”

“Shouldn’t we be thinking of some way to stop it?”

“Yeah, but the question is how.”

“That’s exactly my point.” She said, then looked away from me down the corridor. “Doctor.” She whispered.

“What?” I whispered back.

“There’s someone standing at the corner.”

I didn’t turn, because if I did, whoever was standing at the end of the corridor would know that he’d been spotted. “What does he look like?” I whispered.

“Average height, blonde hair, blue eyes and a rather large nose.”

I immediately knew who she was talking about. “How did he get here? Probably the same way you did, but why isn’t he asking questions?” I whispered, then slowly turned around.

“Who is it?” She asked me, knowing that I knew.

“Rory!” I abruptly completed my turn and flung my arms in the air. “How are you!?” I called down the corridor to him, then I froze on the spot. Something was wrong.

When Rory didn’t answer, I took to walking down the corridor towards him, followed closely by Janet. “Rory?” I repeated myself, a little more contained with my excitement though this time.

There was still no answer.

“Are you alright?” I asked him, coming closer with each step.

It was then that he moved out from the corner, away from the wall, followed closely by a gun baring alien. The alien had four arms, two of which were in the place you’d expect to find them, whilst the others were connected to his waist. He was scaly, like a fish, with a silver coloured stripe connecting his nose to the back of his neck. The rest of the stripe was covered by clothes. His gun seemed to be charged, and was pointing directly at Rory’s head, and he had another in his lower left arm pointing at me and Janet.

“Okay . . .” I said, my voice gave away that I’d become nervous. Not for my life, but in case I said something wrong and Rory got shot. Amy would never forgive me for that.

“Sorry, Doctor, but, how did I get here?” Rory asked, looking around.

“Quiet, you.” The alien moved the gun closer to Rory, and I held my hand out as if to say ‘don’t shoot.’

“You were teleported here, like Janet.” I prodded a thumb in her direction. “I’m not sure why yet, but I’m working on it. Was Amy with you?”

Rory shook his head. “It’s just me.”

“Very strange.” I turned my attention to the alien that was becoming ever more agitated. “Is the gun really necessary?” I asked him.

“Yes.” His answer was basic and boring, he looked at me.

“Was it you that let the Techno-Form out of its cage?”

“It was indeed.” He answered as if it wasn’t a problem.

“Why? What were you thinking?!Do you realise what it’s capable of?” My irritation was showing through now.

“I was thinking that if I held you hostage, you’d get me where I needed to go.”

“Go? Go where?” I questioned, putting my hands in my pockets to try and calm myself down.

“Back home.”

“But you just got here? Surely you must have had a reason. If it was you that let beasty in here-“ I tapped the door “out then you must have got here before him. Which begs the question: how did you get in and what do you want? Oh . . .” I realised that everything I just said was a little pointless. He got here before he let out the Techno-Form, so something else must have teleported him here. There was no way to teleport into the Time Vortex though.

“I didn’t want to come here.” He told me.

“This is getting all timey-wimey now, and I haven’t even started explaining what’s going on.” I said.

“Yeah, Doctor, do start explaining because I have no clue what’s going on.” Rory mentioned.

“You’ll have even less clue when I’ve finished talking.” I sighed and rubbed my face, ending on pinching the bridge of my nose. “Okay. I’ll start from the beginning. The TARDIS was playing up, wouldn’t let me control it, then I saw Janet standing in the door way – wearing my clothes which told me that it was a teleport that let her in. I thought I was in the Time Vortex but I the teleport begged to differ. Anyway, after a while I came to realise that the only thing that could possibly be effecting the TARDIS’ controls was a Maltrazanian spirit, also known as a Techno-Form invented by the Japanese in the twenty-forth century. So when we came down here to look at it – finding it in this room – we had a short conversation and then it disguised itself as me. When we came out we saw you standing at the end of the corridor and so you know what happened from then.

I thought that our friend here had let the Techno-Form out, which indeed he did. But I thought that was what had teleported you and Janet here, which it probably did. Now it’s hacking into the TARDIS mainframe and I can’t do anything to stop it standing here. The sonic won’t work on it so I’m having to think twice as fast as usual. Alien fellah couldn’t have just got here, something else must have transported him onto the TARDIS. The only way something can transport to the TARDIS is if the teleport is activated from the inside, so there’s someone or something else also playing with the controls and I don’t know what that is.”

“Right-“ Rory began.

“But that’s not the bad thing, the bad thing is where we are in space. We’re in a complicated mess of time, normally referred to as a Time Entanglement but I prefer to go by it as a ‘wibbly-wobbly-mess’ because it makes no sense either way and it just sounds less professional. If the TARDIS gets stuck in one, anything can happen. From duplicating realities to disappearing all together, this is why we have to clear off before we become a gap. Wow, I’ve never explained anything so clearly in my life.” I said. Then took a deep breath, I realised I’d been talking extremely quickly.

“Clearly? You’re making no sense.” Rory complained.

“I’m making perfect sense.” I protested.

“No, you’re not. And I think everyone in the room would agree with me.” Rory looked around the corridor for some support, which he received.

“Fine then, a complicated way might make more sense to you. The Maltrazanian pulled the TARDIS out of the Time Vortex, but the TARDIS refused to dematerialise so got stuck in between reality and non-reality. The time in this reality-non-reality is a complicated mess of nothingness which refuses to work properly so if we stay too long neither will we.” I tried again.

“So you’re saying we don’t exist at the moment?” Rory asked.

“No, of course we exist.”

“Oh, right, so we are in reality then?”

“No! We’re not in reality, we’re in non-reality.” I said, frustrated.

“But you just said we exist, how can someone exist in non-reality?!”

“We don’t exist.”

“But you just said we did!”

“We are both existing and not-existing at the same time.”

“How on Earth is that possible?” Rory questioned.

“Again. We’re not actually on Earth, but your phrase is as safe as you are.” I said, and then walked off down the corridor. “And you can stop with the guns too.”


	4. Chapter 4

“I still don’t get why this is happening.” Rory continued complaining, following me down the corridor with a gun still aimed at his head.

“Join the club.” I said, telling him that I didn’t get it either.

“But what’s wrong with the TARDIS?” He asked.

I turned around and spoke through my teeth. “I don’t know – I can’t know everything.”

“You were stupid throwing the manual in a super nova; it probably would come in useful right about now.” Rory told me off.

“At the time I didn’t know something like this was going to happen, what do you want me to do? Travel back in time and catch it before it gets burnt to a crisp? I’d love to Rory but right now – I can’t! In case you haven’t realised the TARDIS isn’t responding to me right now. Something is taking away my control, and I can’t help that.” I told him, angrily.

His answer was just a hurtful glance to the side.

“I’m sorry, but, I have a headache, I’m tired, and at the moment we’re under serious threat of being erased from history.” I apologized as we came into the main control room, I definitely was cranky.

I hadn’t slept in almost four days now and my mind wasn’t built that way. When we came into the control room I sensed something was amiss, especially since when I looked up I wasn’t even in the control room anymore. Around me stood a load of houses, underneath me a stone pavement and nowhere in sight was the TARDIS.

“Of course . . . That’s just so typical.” I complained, looking at the boring, red brick houses.

I’d been teleported off of the TARDIS, without Rory or Janet or the gun-baring-alien whom I still hadn’t learned the name of. I had to find some way of reconnecting with the TARDIS, enough that I’d be able to tell Rory what to do. I’d given him a couple of flying lessons before and they always ended in hilarious circumstances. I remember the last time like it had been yesterday:

 

“Okay, you remember what I just told you, yes?” I had asked Rory as he looked nervously over the console at Amy.

“No . . .” He whimpered.

“Well, you’ll have to learn sometime. Trust your instincts, the TARDIS will help you.” I’d tried to convince him that nothing bad would happen, and that everything would be fine, and that he’d get the hang of it soon.

He’d taken a deep breath and looked at me, seemingly preparing himself for a disaster. The only thing that could possibly go wrong was if he accidentally pulled the de-materialise lever before he’d plotted in a course, which would end up with us lost in space and time for the rest of eternity. Or alternatively decide that he’d want to avoid all of the controls I’d just told him to activate and hit the Atom Transformer. It must have been an accident, because he seemed confident in what he was doing – well, about as confident as Rory could get.

“What did you press that for?!” I asked him loudly over the amount of noise that had just been created as a result of his actions.

“Was I not supposed to?” He asked me, confused.

Amy had her head in her hand, shaking it in some kind of emotional agony, probably embarrassment.

“Right. Rory, Amy, don’t panic, but that’s called an Atom Transformer, and if you’re smart, you can probably figure out what it’s about to do . . .” I said slowly, looking at the screen, half panicking, half excited.

“It’s going to transform the atoms inside the TARDIS?” Rory questioned, looking very scared all of a sudden.

“Yep.” I told him, grinning.

“I still don’t get what it’s going to do . . .” He said after a couple of seconds.

“It’s going to transform atoms. Everything in this room is made out of atoms . . . we could end up as a pile of roses – wouldn’t that be amazing!?” I asked excitedly, bounding around the TARDIS as if it wasn’t a problem. “Or even better – fezzes!”

“Do you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?” Amy asked me.

“Who? Me? No.” I told her honestly when a loud beeping began to sound from the TARDIS console. “I’d say“ I looked at my watch “that we’ve got around forty seconds before we transform.” I looked at the screen and grinned. “And d’you know what it says we’re going to become?”

Amy shook her head, she was now holding Rory’s hand.

“We’re going to be fish! Isn’t that amazing!?”

“. . . Doctor?” Amy and Rory looked like they might cry.

“Yes?” I looked up at them, feeling guilty for some strange reason.

“Can’t you stop it?”

“Yeah. I could.” I sighed.

 

It ended as well as you could have hoped for, Amy and Rory managed to convince me that being a fish wasn’t as good as it sounded. Plus we’d have nothing to breathe either and the excitement would be short lived. I’d never, ever been a non-humanoid before; it would have been the one most amazing experience of my long and eventful life. But companions are what keep me sane, so I wasn’t going to kill myself to feel what a fish felt for 3 minutes. Anyway, all of that was completely beside the point. I realised I still had my earpiece in my pocket from the day I’d met Craig. I positioned it correctly around my ear and tapped a small button on the side. It started bleeping, flashing a blue light to co-ordinate with the beeps.

“Rory, Janet?” I asked for them whilst I began walking down the red coloured street.

I heard no answer, though with the position the TARDIS had been in it might take a while for the message to get through to them. So I took a moment to look at my surroundings, it was quiet, almost too quiet for a Saturday afternoon. It was quite a pretty street; the window sills each contained a basket of well-kept flowers and the houses all seemed newly painted. The roofs were moss free and the windows were spotless of any dust. Inside the houses were brightly lit rooms, but I couldn’t see anyone using them. I was beginning to sense something strange around here, Humans might say that my ‘spider-sense’ was tingling, whatever the hell that meant. Anyway, there was a gentle draft blowing down the street, carrying the scent of newly spread fields. That was quite disgusting. I plucked a flower on one of the window ledges and held that too my nose, it smelt much better than animal leavings. I could hear a dog barking some way down the street; I couldn’t tell what at from this distance, it just sounded like drunken teenagers on a late night muffled by a wall. I was attempting to think of what it was trying to say but all I got was ‘damn-that-cat’. The flower I held to my nose was pink, so when someone approached me on the street they gave me a very strange look. I did say ‘hi’ to her but she walked away very quickly, I wondered how strange I must have looked wearing an ear-piece, a bowtie and a pink flower. I was glad she didn’t decide to call the police.

A loud, screaming, screeching noise sounded from the ear-piece, giving me a very sore head and a very sore ear. I gave it about thirty seconds before I decided that no answer was going to get through any time soon. So I took it out and put the ear-piece in my pocket, it was an unfortunate result which may end up in my loosing the TARDIS and my friends once and for all. I wasn’t going to worry too much though; I should be able to fix it. For the moment I was going to have to find somewhere to stay, one problem at a time. With the TARDIS trapped somewhere between existence and non-existence I could hang about for however long I liked before fixing everything. No matter when I decided that I needed her back I’d always be right on time. That was good; having no time limit was fun.

I took a left into the inner city, the beauty of the street I had been in melded away into dark, grey buildings. Stained black by decades of coal burning, some windows this time were boarded up and the council hadn’t got around to blocking up others. One house I passed was terrifically dreadful; graffiti was sprayed across the front door, reaching one window to the other. It read ‘Devil Spawn’. I think it was meant to be referring to the people that had once lived there. There was an old looking man sat in front of it too, wrapped in a thin sheet with his head rested on a rucksack. His skin was almost as grey as the pavement, dirt clogged under his fingernails. A police siren sounded some way back from where I had come from.

I felt a tugging sensation on my trouser leg and I realised I’d stopped moving next to the man.

“Any change?” The man said, croakily. I could tell he hadn’t drunk in a while.

I dug into my pockets, feeling sorry for him. It took me a while to find what I was looking for; dimensionally transcendental pockets weren’t always that useful. When you couldn’t carry around a massive UV light or a notebook I would miss having them.

“Here you go.” I handed the man a handful of notes and coins, I wasn’t sure if they were all in pounds – since I was probably in Britain somewhere – but I was sure there had to be a Newsagents or a bank around here somewhere.

“Bless you, sir.” He said, scrambling to his feet. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was trying to scam money out of me, I wouldn’t mind, since there was plenty more where that came from, but it would be rather irritating.

When he started walking away I noticed he had a limp in his left leg. He disappeared around the corner and I shrugged, a lot of strange things were happening today, it wouldn’t make much difference to me if anything else decided to go wrong.

I followed him around the corner, with my long strides I should have been able to keep up with him, but he’d disappeared before I could follow his paths. I, using my extraordinary common sense followed a sign pointing to the city center, where I was bound to find a tourist information centre or at least a hotel. I found the lack of people around very interesting, at this time of day it should be bustling with public.

I managed to find myself a decent hotel, about four floors, friendly staff and a large restaurant. I’d checked the menu; they seemed to be quite good. They were offering things like steak and pork, I noticed fish-fingers on the children’s menu and I just had to see if they had custard as a desert. Sadly there was a lack of any cold sweets, so I decided to put up with animal flesh. With a sigh I introduced myself to the woman at the front desk.

“The Doctor.” I said. “I’m looking for a single room” I checked my watch quickly and decided on how many days it might take me to fix this problem. “two nights.” I informed her, leaning on the desk.

“Then I’ll need your credentials.” She said; her voice was light, almost fluffy, not that you could actually have a fluffy voice.

I stuffed my hand in my pocket again and pulled out my psychic paper. I let it fall open and said: “Credit card.” I let her see what she expected then took it away again. Stuffing my hand in my pocket once more I pretended to pull out a different wallet, while in fact I was just about to show her my paper again. “And my drivers licence.”

The woman took down a few notes, smiling at me every now and again as if a lot of people had a very short patience. She pulled herself up from the paper only to duck down behind the desk, I heard her slip out a drawer.

“You’re in room 132.” She said, muffled by the desk.

She stood back up and held the keys in the air for me, I held my hand out for them and she dropped them into my palm. Closing my fist around them I told her thank you and disappeared through into the lift.


	5. Chapter 5

I opened the door to my room, it was much better than I had hoped for. The bed seemed relatively comfy – I’d have to check that out with a few bounces in a moment – there was a desk with an alarm clock on it. Opposite the end of the bed was a television, whether or not it was connected to a digital receiver was a different matter, I could fix that easily though. There was an on-suite; the door was to the left of where I was standing. The window was clean, at least enough to see out of it – not that I’d want to though. Had this hotel been in a better location it may have actually been a five star, but I didn’t think it would make it there in this run down location.

I wandered across to the bed, ignoring the ghastly, green wallpaper. I used my arms to propel myself on top of it, jumping strait onto my feet on top of the mattress. Now I was walking on the duvet with my shoes on, God knows what I’d been stepping in since I’d got here. My hair was scraping the roof, so it was a mistake when I jumped. The clonk was enough to anger the person in the room above me. They shouted through the floor, it sounded like a muffled mess of curses. I however, ignoring the shouts and screams of my fellow angered residents, was nursing my head whilst sat down on the pillow. That was one brain-cell I wouldn’t be getting back anytime soon.

I crawled to the end of the bed, “Is it made of metal?” I asked myself, looking at the bed-frame. This time my hair was rubbing the carpet, the blood rushing to my head. “No . . . more wood.” I sighed; this really was a waste of my time.

I got to my feet again and walked over to the window, there definitely was something off about this place, but I couldn’t tell what. There was some kind of hole that needed filling, not just a pot-hole but a monumental chasm. Where were all of the people? Why was the place so run down? Why were the rooms empty in that pretty street? How did the flowers stay so well in the shadow? How did I get here, was one of the more important questions. It’s not possible to teleport to some random place, there’s always a range. Well, now that I think about it, teleporting to the TARDIS is a big range, but maybe because it’s locked in non-reality, reality, it’s actually very, very close.

Through the window I could see a large building, massive towers stretched into the air, spewing dark smoke into the sky. This was obviously the cause for the blackened buildings. The area was locked off with metal walls and a massive grated entrance, which seemed only to open if you had some kind of pass. It looked partly abandoned, there was no one outside of the building that I could see and no one in the immediate area either. I wondered if this place was just one of those cities where no matter how big it was it would always have a tiny economy and a tiny amount of people. I was snapped out of my thoughts by a loud knock at my door; I’d only been here five minutes so I was intrigued to find out who that might have been.

I unlocked the door from the inside and opened it slowly, just in case anyone decided to attack me - which for a moment I thought they did. I saw a flash of orange before I felt my feet come out from underneath me. I fell on my back, someone’s arms wrapped around my shoulders.

I took a wild guess: “Amy?” I breathed, slightly winded from my fall.

She pulled away, looking down at me, her hair so long that it tickled my face.

“What are you doing here?” She asked through her teeth, sounding angry.

“I could ask you the same question.” I told her, shuffling out of the way so that I could sit up. I hated being leaned over, it made me feel insecure.

“Yeah, but I asked you first.” She grinned, also sitting back against the wall – resting her head on the door frame to the bathroom.

“Well, the TARDIS . . . is . . . was . . . going to be . . . playing up, and it has – or will – or already is – teleported me down here. Where am I anyway? I haven’t seen a town sign in miles.” I explained, in possibly the worst way possible. Speaking in 3D has its consequences.

Amy looked at me for a few seconds, not saying anything. She then got around to the ‘What?’ which I had been expecting for a while now.

“I was teleported here. Next question – How did, and why are you here?” I asked, with a short sigh.

“I don’t know . . . I woke up outside the door and I heard someone yelling from above, I took a wild guess that you’d been jumping on the bed again with a low ceiling.”

I grinned, she knew me so well, maybe too well. I rubbed my head, her words reminding me of the bruise that was probably forming under my hair. It ached very painfully; maybe I should get an ice pack for it or something. Amy sighed and shuffled over to me, then examined my head to see if she could find any ‘permanent’ damage. I let her, even though I felt rather guilty doing so.

“What’s wrong with this place?” Amy asked me, glancing out of the window as she sat back again.

“How do you mean?” I also turned my eyes to the window, but instead of just glancing I stood up at walked over to it.

“It’s so quiet, so . . . so dull.” She said, using a word which I’d previously used to describe her home town.

I took another look out of the window, looking around again. She was right; it was quiet, too quiet, much, much too quiet. I had a bad feeling about this place, as if something was hidden deep. Maybe I was right. I took another look at the power station, since it was actually active, I might as well start by checking it out.

“Have you seen Rory?” Amy asked suddenly, eagerly. I heard her getting to her feet behind me.

I sighed, turning around to face her.

Amy could tell that my answer was a yes without me having to speak, so she just moved onto the next question. “What happened to him?”

“He’s on the TARDIS, he’s safe, along with a gun baring alien and my new friend, Janet.” I tried to hide the ‘gun-baring’ part between my other words, but it didn’t work at all.

“What!? And you just left him there!?” She shouted at me.

“Well, no, I didn’t mean to leave, I just turned around and found myself here.” I explained carefully, making sure not to get yelled at anymore. “Anyway, that’s the least of our problems.”

“The least of your problems . . .” she mumbled, probably hoping to hide it from me, not that she realised that Time Lords had better hearing than humans. “Why’s that?” She asked, louder this time.

“Look.” I pointed out of the window at the power-station.

Still the massive pillars of stone spewed black and grey gasses into the air. There was nothing going on in the courtyard between the electrocuted metal fence and the building, no-body seemingly busy on the outside apart for the person operating the gates. On the inside, you could rarely see a person crossing in front of a window.

“It’s a power-station. So?” Amy asked, I hadn’t realised that she’d walked over to me in the small amount of time that I’d spend observing.

“Everything in this ‘city’ is dull; I see no cars, no pedestrians, actually, the only people I’ve seen in this city are a homeless man, the receptionist and you. Also, I’ve only heard the one dog and a couple shouting upstairs. That is seemingly the only busy place in this entire section of the country! The question is-why? Amy. Why would that be the only busy place? And why, if busy, are they only working inside of the building?” I exclaimed, looking through the window again.

“Maybe because they have to power the rest of the city?” Amy suggested, it was a good point, but there were still problems.

“But if no-where else is busy, why would they need to power anything at all, and why, oh why am I standing here asking ridiculously stupid questions?”

Amy looked at me as if I were ridiculous.

“Come on.” I grabbed Amy’s hand and pulled her out of the door.

We ran down the stairs, I didn’t know why I was running, it seemed a little bit pointless since we had all the time in the world. Is that too confusing? I’ll try and explain a bit further. Since Rory and my ‘friends’ were stuck in a kind of limbo state, their time won’t move until something happens on the outside. It’s like having to communicate with someone by radio, and one person was on Mars, whilst the other on Earth. It would take around 30, maybe 40 seconds for the radio transmission to get somewhere (depending on what year it is.) So the person you are trying to get a message to will sit and wait until they receive it. Following? Good - if it helps, but, it’s not like that at all.

We ran for about three minutes, before Amy started getting a bit worn out and dragged me to a halt – almost causing both of us to fall over. We walked the rest of the way to the power-station. Through Mayn St., a right down Clove Avenue and then came to a stop in Coal St., which honestly is such an unimaginative name for a street containing a coal burning, power generator. We walked up to the electrified gate, which I of course wasn’t willing to touch. I would have used my sonic to get in, but, the man sitting in a little booth looked so bored that I had to give him something to do. I walked over to him.

“Hey.” I leaned on the little ledge that was accessible, since the rest of the counter was covered by glass.

“May I have your pass please?” The man breathed, then yawned hugely.

He looked about his mid-forties, greying hair and a wrinkling face. His eyes were a light grey too, though there were hints of blue. He had rather prominent cheek bones and a very rounded chin.

“Of course.” I dug into my pocket again and produced the psychic paper once more. “Here you go, fellah.” I slid it through the gap under the glass.

Amy came forwards then and hit my shoulder with the back of her hand, she whispered. “Doctor, you do realise the man said ‘have’ and not ‘look at’?”

I nodded, and kind of regretted handing him the paper, I probably wasn’t listening. Well, I was listening, just hadn’t taken it in.

“Well, that seems to check out Mr Harrington, I’ll just need to tick you off of our list.” He said, reaching back for a note-pad and pen.

At first glance, there seemed to be about five names on the sheet of paper, three of which had been scored out and only two were left. He scribbled a bit on the notepad, threw it across the booth onto a counter and slid the psychic paper back under the glass to me.

“Thank you . . . err . . . sir.” I replaced the psychic paper in it’s appropriate pocket and watched the gate slide open.

“Doctor?” Amy asked me as we walked through the gate. “Did you hear what he just said?”

“Hear what?”

“Obviously you’re not paying attention. He said he was going to tick us off of his list, right? There were five names, Andrew Clarence, Bobby Wicket, Lilly Hart, Fredrick Harrington and Catherine Jones.”

“And?” I asked, looking at her, it didn’t seem that much of a problem to me.

“It was stuck on the glass!” Amy yelled at me, pointing back at the booth. “Front page news! Wake up already!”

“The names were?” I was confused now, squinting at her.

“Not the names.” She sighed and walked off.

I heard a ripping noise and she returned to me with a page from a newspaper in her hand. She handed it to me. I looked down at the newspaper; there were pictures of three different people down one side, next to a side of text.

 

‘Disappearances Present Massive Problems for Devon Police Force

Andrew Clarence: 52, Physicist.

Bobby Wicket: 34, Mechanic

Lilly Hart: 37, Mathematician’

 

All three of them had gone missing.


	6. Chapter 6

“It’s not possible, the only way that I could have missed that is if someone put a perception filter around it, and if they needed a perception filter they should never have put it up in the first place – and you wouldn’t have noticed it either, Amy.” I complained.

“Don’t beat yourself up; you tend to miss the obvious quite a lot.” Amy told me.

“Thanks, that’s a lot of help.” I told her sarcastically, glaring at her.

“My pleasure.” She retorted, and we left it at that. I would have preferred the last word, but it never, ever turned out that way.

So, we were somewhere in Devon, I wasn’t much of a geologist, I didn’t know every town in the universe (yet.) But I was guessing some remote city. I didn’t bother to ask Amy if she knew, living in England most of her life probably meant she knew most of the country. Anyway, I’d find out sooner or later. A door to the factory opened with a loud, echoing clunk. I scrunched the front page of the newspaper into a ball and shoved it in my pocket. There was a man standing in the door way, about 5”3, light blonde hair and blue eyes. One of the people you’d automatically expect not to know any history what-so-ever and ask some ridiculously stupid questions. But it just goes to show that all of that stereotypical nonsense is literally just nonsense. The man was wearing a black, all in one, waterproof suit that you could only take off by unzipping it all the way from heel to neck. A golden logo was woven into the suit just below the collar bone on the left hand side of his body. It looked like an eagle carrying a rock, perhaps the rock was meant to be a lump of coal. From this angle, the man had an extremely pointy chin, and I could see why people made jokes about mine.

He walked over to us, just as we were walking towards him and all three of us stopped moving almost simultaneously. He outstretched his hand towards me in greeting – I shook it politely.

“Professor Jake Donovan. I’m guessing you are the new employees, Fredrick Harrington” he cut off and turned to Amy, shaking her hand too “and Catherine Jones.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Amy said warmly, yet you could vaguely tell that she was putting on an act from the suspicion on her face. It was quite obvious that she didn’t like this person.

The professor took a couple of steps back, giving us some space and scratched the back of his neck. A tell tale sign that he was lying about something, or at least hiding something from us. He smiled awkwardly as a result of my silence, but gestured towards the door anyway. Donovan took us through the door, and immediately we saw a new insight to this factory. It wasn’t a power-station at all, the place was brightly lit; electronic consoles lined the wall, with people sat at each station. There was the quiet hum of machinery coming from somewhere in the building that was hidden from sight at the moment. The roof was very high; you could see that there were multiple floors by the balconies that had been indented into the sides of the walls. The professor showed us into a room to the left of the entrance, this place was also brilliantly lit and busy with people. The only difference being was that at the end of the room was a little office, you could see into it because the walls had been made out of glass. The office was probably sound-proofed, and my thought was on the spot when he showed us in and closed the door behind us.

The sounds of people talking and the hum of machinery immediately cut off and we were in complete silence.

“So . . . our job?” I questioned, trying to sound as if we knew what we were doing though.

“Yes, right.” Jake Donovan leaned over the desk that was placed in the centre of the room, opened a drawer and pulled out a pile of papers.

He handed them to me, so I put them in my arms, but he pulled the top sheet off and placed it on the desk for us to read.

“That’s your daily assignment; the rest of this is just paperwork that you’ll do at the end of the day.” Donovan said, taking back the pile and shoving them back in the drawer.

“Paperwork . . . love it.” Amy whispered to herself.

“Someone will be along soon to introduce you to the workings of this place, for now you can just read through this.” He tapped the paper on the desk, and then left the room quickly.

“Well.” I said, picking up the sheet off of the table and throwing myself into a comfy looking chair in the corner of the room.

“Well what?” Amy questioned, sitting on the spinning office chair.

I looked at both sides of the paper quickly, screw it up, and then threw it across the room, getting bulls-eye in the bin.

“You realise we were meant to read that?” Amy asked, looking at the metal bucket.

“I did. Anyway, who cares about work when you can sit around having fun – or even better, walk around and investigate things.” I said, crossing my legs and leaning against the back of the chair.

“Then what stuff were we meant to do? Just out of interest.” Amy asked me.

Honestly, I hadn’t actually read it, but might as well make something up for the fun of it. “Paperwork.” I told her.

“You didn’t read it, did you?” Amy saw right through me.

“No.”

She sighed and walked back over to the bin; she pulled the scrunched-up piece of paper free from the rubbish already in it and flattened it out on the desk. After a moment, she did exactly the same as I had and threw it in the bin again.

“Apparently I’m a manager, and you’re my agent.” Amy grinned happily.

She was going to continuously bug me about this later on; I’d say it’d take about a whole Earth week for her amusement to wear off. “Congratulations.” I said sarcastically. “So, what do you want to do, miss? Try and find the canteen, or sit around and wait for our tour-guide to show up?”

“Hmm, well, I am rather hungry, but we’ll get in trouble from the boss if we’re not here when he turns up.” Amy continued grinning like a maniac; I think my sarcasm just made her even happier.

“We’re not actually working for him you know.” I told her.

“I am, but you’re working for me.” Amy giggled.

Rolling my eyes, I stood up and pushed the glass door open.

“Uh, where do you think you’re going?” Amy asked me, standing up to follow me out.

“Elsewhere, you know how my patience reacts to sitting down for too long.” I answered, looking around the long room.

“But don’t you want to know what our assignment is?” Amy asked me, grabbing my arm.

I sighed. “What?”

“We’re working the cloning industry . . . “ Amy said quietly to me.

“Cloning?” I looked at my watch immediately, making sure the time was right by tapping it. “22nd century? I don’t think so.”

“That’s what it said.” Amy told me, turning back into the room.

She came back with the piece of paper, covered in crinkles, and handed it to me. I read over it quickly.

“Well, it checks out, but, the Human race doesn’t invent cloning for another two-hundred years.” I said, keeping my voice down in case I insulted anyone in the room.

“That means what exactly?” Amy questioned.

“That means this must be an alternative reality, or, alternatively, an alien invasion.” I used ‘alternative’ twice in the same sentence on purpose, just to confuse Amy.

“Which is more likely?” Amy asked me.

“I’d say, alien invasion . . . but . . .” I retrieved the front page of the newspaper from my pocket and unfolded it.

In small print at the bottom of the page, printed in italics were the words:

Published by Coal Corp. Devon, Melderton, Coal St.

“Then it must be an alternative reality, there’s no such place called Melderton in Devon . . . I don’t think so, anyway.” I mentioned quietly.

“You’re right, there is no such place.” Amy confirmed.

“Then how can we possibly have come here with just a teleport?” I asked her, in case she managed to come up with any amazing ideas.

“I have no idea.” Amy told me.

The door at the end of the corridor squeaked open and a hushed talking could be heard from behind it. A couple of footsteps later, someone appeared from the gap, followed closely by Donovan. Donovan came up to us, whilst I quickly forced the newspaper back into my pocket.

“Dr. Yana, these are your clients – Fred Harrington and Catherine Jones.” Prof. Donovan introduced us.

“Fred?” I mouthed silently.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Yana said politely, nodding his head in greeting. “Shall we get on with the tour?”

I stayed silent, since Amy was in charge now – it would be interesting to see how that turned out.

“Yes, of course.” Amy gestured to the door.

I and Amy followed Yana out of the door again, leaving Donovan in the room behind us. We came into the massive, high-ceilinged room again, it was a little less busy now - it must have been lunch hour.

“This is of course the main room if you like, help desk and main office is over there.” Yana pointed to a section of the room that was walled off, with one small wooden door on one wall and a glass window on the other. “The canteen is this way.”

He led us into yet another open planned room. There were at least thirty, maybe forty tables in it. Each table was round and surrounded by eight stools. At the end of the room was obviously the kitchen. There was a ledge on the wall with about seven different selections of meals. It was a nice range, except most of it looked mashed and of a ‘baby-food’ consistency.

“Is anybody hungry?” Yana asked us.

I personally had been hungry, but after seeing what foods were on offer I felt more like leaving the room. There was a horrible smell of burning coming from the kitchen, a little bit like sweet pop-corn that had way too much sugar on it.

“No, thanks . . .” I said, holding my nose to stop myself from smelling it.

“Yeah, I’ll pass too.” Amy said, you could tell she was gagging without looking at her.

“Okay, suit yourselves.” Dr. Yana didn’t seem turned off by the smell, and went up to the kitchen.

The people serving the lunched gave him a ladle-full of slop and he took it over to an empty table, both I and Amy went and sat on the opposite side of the table from him – as far away from the food as possible. The food was obviously and acquired taste. Yana actually appeared to like it.

“When I’ve finished, I’ll show you to the systems you’ll be working on.” Yana said, digging into his food.

“That’s good then.” I told him, putting my head on my arms atop of the table; I wasn’t one for sitting around waiting for other people to finish their food.

The smell was overpowering, I thought I was going to throw up – which meant that Amy probably felt even worse than me.

“Don’t use your nose, Am-Catherine.” I almost used Amy’s name instead of the fake ones we were given.

“I’m trying not to.” She sounded as if she had a cold.

I lifted my hand and pinched it for her. “Don’t suffocate on me.”

“The food is hard to get used to at first, but you’ll eventually succumb to it, honestly it doesn’t taste at all that bad.” Yana tried to convince me.

“We’ll see . . . “


	7. Chapter 7

It took around twenty minutes of the unendurable stench for Yana to finally finish his food – if you could call it food. He stood up and took his plate back over to the kitchen for the cooks to clean up. Yana led us through a few more rooms without talking to us; he took us to a smallish room. It looked much more high-tech than the rest of the building, made almost completely of metal. There were lights flashing all over the place, related to the mechanical objects on the walls. At the far back of the room were four little cylindrical pillars of glass. Two of the glass pillars were filled with a greenish liquid, whilst the other two were covered in a load of wires.

“Cloning . . .” I said slowly, walking up to the pillars.

I didn’t find any problem with cloning, no; it was the result of cloning that really got to me. Two people with the same feelings, memories and family – maybe three, maybe four, perhaps even ten. I hadn’t noticed before that a lot of the people in this factory looked very, very similar.

“That’s correct.” Yana said with a smile, wandering over to a control panel. “This is your sector of work, so it’s not surprising that you recognise it – what’s surprising is the expression on your face.” Yana told me.

Immediately I put on an act. My face changed from surprise to realisation. I walked over to Yana’s side and peered over his shoulder, wondering what he was doing.

“Doctor.” Amy said my name to get my attention, though it resulted in both me and Yana turning around.

Someone had come through the door, again dressed in black, waterproof overalls.

“Yes, he’s scheduled for cloning right now.” Yana assured us.

“You remind me of Frankenstein . . . “I mumbled.

“Sorry, what?” Yana asked me.

“Nothing.” I told him.

As Yana began to fiddle with the controls, Amy stepped up to my side and whispered in my ear: “Remind you?”

“What?” I turned to her, whispering my words as well.

“Never mind.” She shook her head and turned back to the person who had just come through the door.

I shook my head. Yana approached the man and helped him into one of the pillars, he tied him in with a few straps and punctured wires into his skin – this made Amy cringe but I pretended not to notice.

“Watch the magic.” Yana said, then walked back over to the panel.

He pressed a light blue coloured button and the door to the pillar snapped shut with a hiss. Then the same fluid in the other pillars started filling up the one that the man was inside. Life signs started showing up on a small screen attached to the panel that Dr. Yana was working at. The man inside of the pillar closed his eyes, and the life signs showed that he was falling into unconsciousness. The liquid inside the tube must have been breathable too, if he was to be able to live inside of that thing.

To the left of him, the liquid in the pillar - that currently was unoccupied – began turning a cloudy green colour. Like Clouded Lemonade. The cloudy liquid began forming into the figure of a man, unaffected by the laws of gravity. You could clearly see the facial features beginning to shape on what was obviously meant to be a face. Then the ‘eyes’ opened, full of life. Since when had the brain become active? This was bad . . . very bad . . . there was nothing worse than a living, breathing copy of someone. Something was going to go wrong, just as it had with the Flesh. Cloning . . . so dangerous.

Soon enough the process was finished; and Dr. Yana let the original person out of the straps and the wires. He had small cuts on his skin that were now bleeding and he looked extremely tired. He helped the man across the room and asked Amy if she would take him to the lounge where he could rest. Of course Amy didn’t know where this place was since Yana had not yet completed the tour so he gave her the required directions. I was going to protest but Amy seemed willing to help, it was just like her.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked Yana, now that Amy had left the room.

“I need you to teach our clone the basics.” He said.

Yana unlocked the door to the pillar that the fully grown clone had been created him. I had the weirdest feeling that the Sontarans had something to do with this process.

"Basics?" I asked, deciding to act like an idiot - it would get more information out of them.

"Yes, basics." Yana answered, guiding the replica body over to me. "He's your worker, show him to your department and tell him what to do. He won't ask questions."

“And what are you going to do?” I asked Yana.

“That’s none of your business.” He answered, then left the room.

I looked over at the clone, and it looked back at me. He didn’t say a word; maybe it didn’t have the mental capacity for creating sentences. He looked the same in every way, same coloured hair, same hair style, same coloured eyes, same height, same figure. So, the question was – If everything about his physical form is the same, why isn’t he as smart? After all, knowledge was based purely on the connections in the brain and the ability to understand things.

I observed his name plate attached to his uniform, Stan was his name. He was a ‘cloning duty officer’, which probably meant that he was the one who did all of the cloning. Stan didn’t move at all, he continued staring at me – though he really seemed to stare through me. He hadn’t moved a muscle until he had been told to.

I turned to the control panel, the writing made no sense to me, since the TARDIS was locked in some kind of non-existent reality it probably wasn’t translating for me. Not only that, but I didn’t think it was even a language at all; it looked like just a collection of Viking runes just thrown onto the panel like modern art.

“You’re not qualified at all, are you?”

I heard the voice, but it didn’t sound familiar in anyway what-so-ever. I looked up; nobody had entered the room since I had turned away from the door.   
“Are you?” The voice asked again.

I realised that it was Stan who had spoken, and I felt like a bit of an idiot then for not figuring this out earlier.

“No, not really. Though I am qualified for lots of other things.” I answered, turning back to the panel.

“What things?” Stan continued.

“Um . . .” I gave a long breath while I thought through my options. “I have a PhD-honorary. I have a degree in historical science, a degree in quantum, particle and ordinary physics . . . “

There was a long silence, as Stan didn’t reply. I eventually decided this was a great time to explore and discover something interesting. I left the room without saying another word, but Stan insisted on following me. I headed down the corridor, avoiding the looks of nosy workmen.

I knew I was supposed to be heading back to ‘my department’- although, technically it belonged to Amy - but my freedom was too good to give up. Each room that I peered into was brightly lit, and contained rows upon rows of high-tech gadgets and computers. Each room had flashing lights and the either low hum of machinery or high-pitched squealing coming from a broken piece of equipment. I was amazed that I didn’t meet anybody in the corridors that was telling me to get back to work, maybe everyone was separate here.

I found a room which looked a lot like it contained means of teleporting, an excited grin spread across my face as I investigated. It seemed that Stan though, was still eager to come with me.

“I can’t leave yet . . . I can’t fix the TARDIS until I know why it’s gone wrong . . .” I said quietly to myself, and realised that this place must be the culprit as to why the TARDIS was stuck.

“What are you talking about?” Stan asked.

I turned to look at him. “Yana said you wouldn’t ask questions . . .” I shrugged and walked out of the door again.

I had to find what was messing with the TARDIS, and I would do it now. I continued searching through rooms and corridors before I found Amy sat in a small room with the original Stan. Amy rushed up to me with the kind of expression that said ‘get-me-away-from-him’. Although it was impossible for me to follow through this request, since copied Stan was still following me around. However, she seemed to prefer this silent type of person and came with me while I searched around for the method that these people were using.

I realised that, these people, who were messing with the controls of the TARDIS knew me . . . they knew me and were trying to trap me here. That’s why they teleported me off of the TARDIS, and they were probably trying to get Amy and Rory too, though I wasn’t exactly sure why Rory wasn’t teleported with me. Whatever the case, I needed to deal with the problems on ‘Earth’ - being parallel or alternative – before trying to find the TARDIS again. There was practically no hope for the TARDIS, or Rory, or Janet, or the gun baring alien, if I couldn’t find out what this so-called coal company was up to.

It was just then that some description of a bell rang, a voice boomed through a speaker which was hidden somewhere – perhaps in a wall.

“A message to all employees: you must leave the premises immediately. Repeat, this is a message to all employees: you must leave the premises immediately.”

I looked up at this speaker, or at least what I thought was the speaker, then down at Amy.

“Leaving, or staying for the night?” I questioned her.

“Leaving,” Amy had made the decision without actually thinking.

“Alright, Ms Pond!” I called, rather loudly, and stalked off down the corridor.

“Whatever happened to ‘ladies first’,” Amy said quietly, but I could still hear her.

She followed me slowly towards the exit of the building, there were many people already leaving through the double doors that actually seemed incapable of a polite exit. They were all barging and pushing and shoving their way through the distressed and frustrated crowd. There was a lot of yelling and protesting, and sometimes even the rare angry punch thrown at somebody. It was a rabble of hungry seagulls!

“I do happen to think that there is another exit,” I told Amy, looking to her.

It was true, I had noticed another door that read ‘fire-exit’ near to the room that she had been in before while I was exploring.

“Do you now?” Amy asked, adding a ‘hmm’ onto the end of her sentence, “might I just ask why you are speaking like an old-fashioned gentleman?” She asked, imitating me.

I ignored what she had said, turned on my heels and started searching for the door . . . with my nose.

“What . . . ?” Amy sighed and decided not to ask, probably worried to hear the answer.

Another couple of sniffs lead me back to the room.

Sniff, “I think-“ sniff, “it was-“ sniff, “over-“ sniff, “here! Aha!”

I grabbed the handle of the door and tugged it open, and relating to Amy’s previous comment, I held the door open and said: “ladies first!”

Amy bowed her head at me, and with a smirk, walked out into the cold, darkening, evening air. Her fiery orange hair was blowing harshly around her face, while we were inside it had become windy. I followed her out and then wished I hadn’t, not only had the wind picked up, but it was also pouring down with a rain. What a perfect change to the weather . . .

Together, struggling through the crowd that were evacuating the building, walked back to the hotel. On the street Amy had mentioned a growing hunger and instead of going back to the hotel room, we avoided the building completely and crossed into the restaurant.


	8. Chapter 8

I sat across from Amelia at the brown, oak table that we’d been given. It was positioned next to a window, which, even though the room was brightly lit, just made the inside of the building seem that little bit less warm and cheerful. The whole room was practically made out of wood, and it had that nice, comforting, cottage-like feeling. Like being sat in front of a fire at Christmas, with the lights out, watching your favourite program on the television whilst drinking a warm cup of tea or wine and some snacks. Ooh, and don’t forget the tree lights in the corner of the room . . . ugh, anyway, back to the point. We were sat waiting, well, Amy was waiting, I wasn’t, I didn’t order anything. She had politely ordered steak . . . or something like that, and also a child’s portion of fish-fingers, which caused the waitress to give me an odd looking glance, the kind that said ‘you’re-a-little-bit-weird’.

Amy was now sitting, sipping tea from a cup and then reaching across the table for a Jammy Dodger which I had provided from my pocket, which almost contained the whole universe – minus the kitchen sink.

She looked at me, unspeaking, her eyes scanning the expression on my face, my posture, my glances to the side, picking me apart before she spoke.

“Are you feeling alright?” She asked, speaking up after a long period of time.

I also took forever to answer, on purpose, scanning her too.

“I’m fine,” I told her.

Amy looked down into her cup, wrapping her fingers around the outside and letting it go with one hand to finally dip the biscuit in the tea.

“You’re lying,” she said, smirking up at me beneath her eyebrows.

I sighed; Amy could see right through me – again, I had no chance of lying to her much further, unless of course it was really necessary.

“You’re right,” I said, leaning back in my chair and grabbing a biscuit from the table and sticking it in my mouth whole.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m just thinking, that’s all,” I answered, this time telling the truth.

Amy let her hair fall in front of her face as she turned her head down once more, “God help us," she laughed. "Thinking about what?” she added with a smile.

I watched her as she took the wet Jammy Dodger from the cup, and, as obviously, it snapped in two and half of the biscuit sunk to the bottom of the cup – to Amy’s annoyance. She frowned at it, and tried to retrieve it with a spoon while I spoke.

“How to fix the TARDIS, how to fix the world, what the cloning business is all about and also why there is an alien smirking at us in the corner of the room,” I said abruptly.

“What!?” Amy yelled loudly, dropping her spoon in the cup with a clink and a splash of tea firing across the room.

“Shhhh!” I put my hand over Amy’s mouth, leaning across the table and throwing cutlery onto the floor.

The alien creature had looked up from a newspaper that he had been – very indiscreetly – hiding behind. As did mostly every other being in the room, all staring at us; wondering why I was stretched across the table and why Amy was looking shocked.

The alien got up from the table, putting the paper down upon it, neatly folded in the way he had been given it. He stared across the room at us, his eyes flitting towards the seemingly unaffected people eating at the restaurant. None of these people screamed or even seemed the slightest bit worried by the fact that there was an alien in the room, and a strange looking one at that.

It was skinned with dark-blue scales and had antennae like a fish, stretching out like ears. They were twitching about as each noise became known. A shuffling behind us caused the alien’s eyes to drift back to us. Then it spoke, it’s voice sounded almost like nails being dragged across a black board, but also almost twisted to sound like someone gargling water.

“You have broken intergalactic law: binary 00110010 00110111 00110101 00110000.”

It’s garble of numbers made no sense to me, I didn’t speak in binary code, though I probably could if I tried.

“Sorry, um . . . “ I stood up from the table and walked over to the alien, “Mr . . . ?” I rotated my hand, hoping it was pursue an answer to what this alien’s name was.

“My name is of no concern of yours, you will be removed from existence now,” the alien answered, and it took me a moment to understand what it meant.

It all came clear when he drew a large gun from his back pocket.

I jumped back towards the table, grabbed Amy’s shoulders and pulled her down, just as a laser beam passed over our heads and fired strait into the glass. The window shattered and shards of dust rained down on us, the glass had been turned to sandy-dust from the gun, it must have been some description of a disintegrator ray. I dragged Amy towards the door, without getting up fully. Another beam of disintegrating danger just missed us, passing through both a chair and table near to us – it was lucky no-one had got hurt from that. Well, I and Amy did; we fell forwards onto the floor, which wasn’t very soft, the carpet was rough and felt like gravel on our faces. Everyone in the room had started screaming by now, and were trying to vacate the restaurant.

The alien was walking towards us slowly, primed and ready to shoot, he wanted a better shot.

“Wait! Hang on!” I yelled putting up my hand, but the alien did not stop moving. I thought quickly, trying to remember which law was which. “Under the circumstances of Galactic Law six-seven-three, you are required to tell us what we are being charged for!”

The alien lowered his weapon and groaned, almost angrily and annoyed that I’d gotten something right.

“You are charged on interfering with the flow of time, worlds are crumbling and disappearing on the other side of the universe and it’s your fault,” the alien replied.

I knew this would probably be as a result of the TARDIS going weird. The alien began lifting his gun again.

“Wait, wait, wait!”

Amy cringed.

“Um. Um. Galactic Law seven-three-three! No, wait. Seven-three-four! Seven-three-four states that you tell us the evidence acquired!” I cried, improvising using my educated guessing skills, it seemed I had got the number right again.

The alien replied with, “Galactic Law seven-three-five states that rule seven-three-four may be ignored if the charge is severe enough.”

“Galactic Law seven-three-six!” I returned, letting him figure out what the law stated.

“Galactic Law four-five-nine.”

“Two-six-seven!”

. . .

 

Amy sat on the edge of the bed in our ghastly, green hotel room, staring out of the window with a subtle smile on her face. I was watching her from the floor; sat in the corner between the door and the wall. I was patiently waiting for her to ask me what had happened exactly to actually allow us to get out of being disintigrated. I leaned back against the wall, thinking about what had happened. To the end of the ordeal, after about tweny odd galactic laws, I managed to convince the alien to give us some time to fix it. Of course he wasn't very happy about that, since he may end up getting fired from his job. I had thanked him greatly, and gave him some reassurance that if he did indeed lose his job, I would make sure he got it back.

I looked up to Amy again, she was now frowning at the darkening sky outside. I stood up, walking over to her and sitting on the bed next to her.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked her quietly, also looking out of the window.

"Rory . . . " Amy sighed, "are you sure he's going to be okay, up there all by himself?" she questioned me, as if thinking I'd know the answer.

"He'll be fine, like I explained before, as long as we get to him before anything happens - which involves travelling back in time - we'll be able to save him," I told Amy.

"Then why don't we go now? Save him first, then deal with this place?" She questioned quietly, turning to me and folding her legs on the bed.

"Because if we go back to the TARDIS we might not be able to get back here . . . and we have to make the right decisions, because if we make the wrong ones it could lead to the whole universe crumbling around us. So you have to trust me this time, Amy, he will be fine." I told her, looking at her from under my eyebrows while I waited for confermation that she understood me.

"Okay," she smiled half-heartedly.

"Believe me, Pond," I told her, giving her the kind of mocking, angry glare.

"I believe you," she told me, then turned to look out of the window at the dimming sky.

It was almost night now, the sun had already set beyond the buildings and there was a small orange glow just above the horizon. There were a few orangey-white clouds dotted about here and there, in the sky, a gaggle of geese flew north in their little arrow. Their loud babbling managed to make it's way through the window so I and Amy could hear it. There was the immediate silence between us that told me, that infact, she was still lying. Her trust in me faded every time it involved Rory. I could do nothing but sit and wait until I thought of something to do, which didn't take very long.

"Do you want to sit around here, or investigate this and that?" I questioned her.

"What's this?" Amy asked, looking back at me.

"A factory."

"And that?"

"The rest of the factory," I answered with a smile.

Amy smiled back, "it beats hanging around in this ugly, little room."

I reached over and took Amy's hand from off her lap, then stood up, "come along then, Pond," I said, and pulled her out of the room with me.

It was dark by now, outside a cool breeze blew down the street, making the cold night just that little bit colder. There was also a light rain, that stung my face with it's chill, but it wasn't heavy enough to soak through my clothes, just to leave droplets of water clinging to my hair. The moon - or, what was apparently the moon - shone brightly, which helped to light up the ground and the clouds in the sky. By the time we reached the factory, the rain had stopped, and puddles had formed in the potholes in the road. I looked up at the building, and could swear there was something different about it - something I was missing that must have been of some importance. Of course . . . the gate was open.


End file.
